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Valve Timing Diagram in a 4-Stroke IC Engine

Valve timing diagrams are used to express the timing of opening and closing of inlet and exhaust valves with
respect to crank angle. In this document I will discuss how an ideal valve timing diagram looks like and how does
an actual diagram looks like. I will discuss why the two are different.
An Ideal Diagram
An ideal valve timing diagram of a 4 stroke engine is shown in the diagram on the
right. It is the spiral looking figure. Point 1 shows that the exhaust valve is open
and piston is at the top dead center (TDC). Piston moves down and air enters the
cylinder until piston reaches the bottom dead center (BDC) at point 2. Here, the
inlet valve is closed. Now, piston moves towards the TDC and compresses the air
(in case of diesel engine) or air fuel mixture (in case of petrol engine) until it
reaches the TDC at point 3, where the spark plug is fired in petrol engines and fuel
is sprayed in diesel engine causing an explosion resulting in expansion of the gas
mixture pushing the piston down towards the BDC. When piston reaches BDC,
exhaust valve is opened which is represented by point 4. Piston moves towards
TDC and pushes the exhaust gases out of the cylinder until it reaches point 5 which
marks the closing of the exhaust valve and the beginning of a new cycle.
A Practical Diagram
In a practical engine, inlet valve opens before TDC and closes after BDC. Similarly,
exhaust valve opens before BDC and closes after TDC.
An exemplary diagram is shown on the right-down. Inlet valve opens 12 before
piston reaches TDC at point 1 and closes 40 after BDC at point 2. Similarly, exhaust
valve opens 41 before BDC at point 4 and closes 15 after TDC at point 5.
Discussing the differences between Ideal and Practical diagrams
The first difference is that in a practical diagram inlet valve opens before
TDC while in an ideal diagram it opens at TDC. An ideal diagram assumes
that valves open and close instantaneously. On the other hand, in a real
engine, the valve begins its lift, holds its lift at maximum opening and
then begins its descent. It must begin its lift before TDC so that it is fully
open at TDC when piston starts to suck air through the valve. If it will
begin its lift at TDC then piston will be facing a bit of load in trying to suck
air through a partially open valve.
The second difference is that inlet valve closes after BDC in a practical
diagram instead of at BDC. The reason for that piston moves down from
TDC to BDC very quickly. To give you a perspective, a car engine idles
around 800 rpm. If you do the maths for a 4 stroke engine, you will find that 800rpm means a single engine cycle
is completed in 0.15 seconds. This means that 1 stroke completes in 0.0375 seconds. This is the time taken by
the piston to move from TDC to BDC when the engine is idling. Imagine what happens at 4000rpm when you
floor the gas pedal.

At such a lightning fast speed of the piston, it is hard for air to catch up with the piston. When piston reaches
BDC during its suction stroke, air hasnt caught up therefore the inlet valve must not close at BDC, instead, it
should allow the rushing air to enter the cylinder to make sure that the cylinder is packed with air before the
fuel combustion takes place. Another reason for this delay in closing the inlet valve is to allow the rushing inlet
gases to push out the exhaust gases out of the cylinder before the beginning of compression stroke. I will discuss
this point in detail under valve overlap.
The third difference between an ideal and actual valve diagram is that exhaust valve opens before BDC instead
of at BDC. There are two reasons for this. First is to make sure that the valve is fully open at BDC (as discussed
earlier, valve begins its lift then holds it then descends). Second reason is to save the piston from doing work for
pushing the exhaust gases out of the piston as well as making sure that no exhaust gas remains inside the
cylinder at the beginning of the next stroke. Exhaust valve opens before BDC because pressure inside the
cylinder is high at this point and it can be used to remove exhaust gases from the piston. This phenomenon is
termed as exhaust blowdown. We do lose some power due to this phenomenon because that pressure which
we used for exhaust gases removal could have been used to obtain power but it is a compromise we have to
make to improve overall engine performance.
The fourth difference is that in an actual valve timing diagram, exhaust valve closes after TDC instead of at TDC.
This is done to make sure that exhaust gases are completely removed by the rushing fresh air charge at the
beginning of the suction stroke of next cycle (see valve overlap).
Valve Overlap
Observe the point 1 in practical valve timing diagram (it is the projection of point 1 on the outer most loop of
spiral). This point marks the beginning of next cycle while the ongoing cycle is yet to be finished. During the final
stroke of the piston, when the piston reaches near TDC, inlet valve opens and new cycle begins but the ongoing
cycle finishes at point 5 when the exhaust valve closes. Thus, from point 1 to 5 both inlet and exhaust valves
are open. This is called valve overlap.
During the valve overlap inlet gases rush into the cylinder pushing exhaust gases out. Valve overlap must exist
to make sure that no exhaust gas is in the cylinder when compression stroke begins. Complete exhaust gas
removal is very important because if exhaust gases will remain inside the cylinder in compression stroke, they
will not take part in combustion because they are already combusted and as a result they will reduce the
combustion efficiency.

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